Sub-Contractors Get Lost in the Weeds, Find Themselves In Jail

(September 27, 2017) - A sub-contractor duo working on a customer's home wound up subtracting from the property rather than improving it by stealing very expensive plants.

On September 25, 2017 the Cape Coral Police Department received a call in which sub-contractors renovating a house had stolen two Staghorn Fern plants from the property valued at $1,500 each. This was captured on the home's surveillance system.

The next day on the 26th, the victim re-contacted police when the same workers returned to the property to continue renovations. Contact was made with the pair, identified as Diego Varela-Fernandez (DOB: 9-4-79) and Jose Carmenate-Lopez (DOB: 10-22-71) and they were both arrested and charged with one count each of grand theft. Varela-Fernandez and Carmenate-Lopez were transported to the Lee County Jail.